Born: May 27, 1907, Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S.Died: April 14, 1964, Silver Spring, Md. Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author of widely read books on ecological themes. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, and educated at the former Pennsylvania College for Women and Johns Hopkins University, she taught zoology at the University of Maryland from […]
Born: Dec. 11, 1863, Dover, Delaware, U.S.Died: April 13, 1941, Cambridge, Mass. Annie Jump Cannon was an American astronomer, born in Dover, Delaware, and educated at Wellesley and Radcliffe colleges. She was an assistant at the Harvard College Observatory from 1897 until 1911, when she was appointed curator of astronomical photographs. She was responsible for
Born: August 12, 1919, Davenport, Cheshire, England Burbidge is an English-born American astronomer and first woman to be appointed director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. She made notable contributions to the theory of quasars (quasi-stellar sources), to measurements of the rotation and masses of galaxies, and to the understanding of how chemical elements are formed
Born: February 3, 1821, Counterslip, Bristol, Gloucestershire, EnglandDied: May 31, 1910, Hastings, Sussex Elizabeth Blackwell was a British-American physician and first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. Born near Bristol, England, Blackwell and her family moved to New York City when she was 11 years old, after a fire had destroyed
Born: July 19, 1817, Knox county, Ohio, U.S.Died: Nov. 8, 1901, Bunker Hill, Kan. Mary Ann was an organizer and chief of nursing, hospital, and welfare services for the western armies under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War.Mary Ann grew up in the houses of various relatives. She attended
Born: June 7, 1909, Westfield, New Jersey, U.S.Died: Aug. 7, 1974, New York Apgar was an American physician, anaesthesiologist, and medical researcher who developed the Apgar Score System, a method of evaluating an infant shortly after birth to assess its well-being and to determine if any immediate medical intervention is required.Apgar graduated from Mount Holyoke
Born: May 16, 1718, Milan, Habsburg crown land[now in Italy]Died: January 9, 1799, Milan Agnesi was an Italian mathematician and philosopher, considered to be the first woman in the Western world to have achieved a reputation in mathematics.Agnesi was the eldest child of a wealthy silk merchant who provided her with the best tutors available.
Born: June 26, 1911, Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.Died: September 27, 1956, Galveston, TexasBabe Didrikson Zaharias was an American athlete, named the greatest woman athlete of the first half of the 20th century by an Associated Press poll in 1950. She was born Mildred Didrikson in Port Arthur, Texas. She excelled in many sports, including basketball,
Died: 756, Mawei, Sichuan province, ChinaYang Guifei was famous concubine of Xuanzong, emperor of China’s Tang (T’ang) dynasty from 712 to 756. Daughter of a high official, Yang Guifei was originally the concubine of one of Xuanzong’s sons, but the emperor, who favoured large women, found her so attractive that in 745 he took her
Born: April 19, 1969, Budapest, Hungary Zsuzsa Polgar is a Hungarian international grandmaster who won the women’s world chess championship in 1996 from Xie Jun of China. In 1999, Polgar was stripped of her title by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE; the international chess organization) for failing to agree to match conditions.At four years
Born: July 23, 1976, Budapest, Hungary The youngest of three chess-playing sisters (see Zsuzsa Polgar). She became an international master at the age of 12 and the youngest international grandmaster in history at the age of 15 years and 4 months, eclipsing Bobby Fischer’s record by a month.Apart from her gold-medal-winning appearances for the Hungarian
Born: Aug 7, 1876, Leeuwarden, NetherlandsDied: Oct 15, 1917, Vincennes, near Paris, France Mata Hari, professional name of Gertrud Margarete Zelle (1876-1917), was a Dutch courtesan and alleged spy during World War I (1914-1918). Born in Leeuwarden and educated in a convent, she married Campbell MacLeod, a British-born captain of the Dutch army, when she
Born: Sept 28, 1913, Plumes county, California, U.S.Died: Dec 13, 1990, Palm Springs, California Alice Marble was an American tennis player and four-time winner of the singles title at the United States Nationals tournament (1936, 1938-1940), which became the U.S. Open in 1968. Marble was born in Plumas County, California and began competing in her
Born: May 24, 1899, Compiègne, FranceDied: July 4, 1938, Paris Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was a French tennis player, whose popularity in the 1920s helped establish women’s tennis as a spectator sport. In an era when female tennis players wore elaborate and concealing costumes on the court, Lenglen became celebrated for her tennis apparel, which
Born: July 24, 1963, Benton Harbour, Michigan, U.S. Julie Krone is an American jockey, the first woman to win the prestigious Belmont Stakes.Krone grew up on a horse farm in Eau Claire, Michigan. Her mother, Judi, was a prize-winning show rider, and Julie was only 5 years old when she began winning horse shows in